'The Villainess' TV Series Being Produced By Robert Kirkman's Skybound Entertainment
The hyper-violent South Korean action movie The Villainess is finding new life on TV. Robert Kirkman's Skybound Entertainment, the company behind The Walking Dead, will produce The Villainess TV series, with the original feature director Jung Byung-gi lined-up to helm the pilot. The story focuses on a young woman who was trained since childhood to become a deadly assassin.
The Villainess
If you've never seen Jung Byung-gil's 2017 action-fest The Villainess, you should go check it out on Hulu immediately. The plot isn't exactly mind-blowing, but the action – which comes hard and heavy – will knock you on your ass. And now a Villainess TV series is in the works, according to Deadline. Here's the original film's synopsis:
Since she was a little girl, Sook-hee was raised to be a deadly assassin. She gladly accepts the chance to start a new life when South Korea's Intelligence Agency recruits her as a sleeper agent, with the promise of complete freedom after ten years of service. But soon after taking on her new identity as Chae Yeon-soo, a 27-year-old theatre actress, she begins to realize that for someone who has lived as a killer her entire life, normal is no easy task. When two men from her past suddenly appear in her new life, it unlocks dark secrets that should've stayed hidden, and the fallout is swift and explosive.
The Villainess TV series will follow a similar path, with some notable changes:
The Villainess follows Anes, who was kidnapped from her home in Korea and raised as a deadly assassin in Los Angeles. Just when Anes believes she has found true peace, unsettling events drive her to return to Korea to uncover dangerous truths about her home and her past.
Skybound Entertainment and Contents Panda will bring the movie to the small screen, and are currently looking for a writer. "Jung Byung-gil has quickly established himself as one of the world's great action directors, and we're incredibly excited to be working with him to expand the world of The Villainess into a thrilling international series," said Bryan and Sean Furst, Co-Presidents of TV and Film at Skybound Entertainment.
Contents Panda's Kim Jae-min added that the hope is that The Villainess "will bring special entertainment and fun to the audience with its rich stories of the genre, and through the partnership with Skybound Entertainment, already well-known for The Walking Dead."
What made the movie so memorable was the kinetic, often mind-blowing action. Can that type of action transfer over to TV? I really don't know – I've yet to see it happen. But if the powers that be can pull it off, The Villainess TV series could turn out to be something special.